The first patients — nearly 150 of them — walked through the front door of The Lennar Foundation Medical Center on Monday, December 5, entering a spectacular new facility and a spectacular new world of health care.

The many months of preparation and the extraordinary support of The Lennar Foundation began paying off as the University of Miami Health System opened this model for future health care delivery — a conveniently located facility where patients are treated as individuals with a superior patient experience and transformational medical care.

The pilot needle exchange program, the IDEA Exchange named after the Infectious Disease Elimination Act, is just one area where University of Miami health officials have been working to find a cure and stop the spread of HIV/AIDS.

For years, while a student at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Hansel Tookes fought the Florida legislature to pass the first law in the state that would allow drug users to exchange used needles for clean ones in an effort to combat HIV transmission among at-risk groups.

On Thursday, after four years of fighting and on a day that coincides with World AIDS Day, the pilot needle exchange program begins in Miami-Dade. “Syringe exchange is one of the most evidence-based interventions we have to prevent HIV,” said Tookes, M.D., M.P.H. “As the heroin epidemic in South Florida flourishes, we now have the proper tools to keep this population healthy. Harm reduction works and now Miami will join other progressive U.S. cities to better service our citizens.”

The University of Miami Miller School of Medicine Dean’s Diversity Council has created a diversity and inclusion statement that outlines the school’s values and goals and is designed to be used as a guide for departments, centers and other units of the school.

“In talking to search committees and admissions committees about what diversity is, what it means, how important it is to the University of Miami, I very quickly realized in my role as someone specializing in this as a workforce development issue that diversity means many different things to many different people,” said Stephen N. Symes, M.D., Associate Dean for Diversity and Multicultural Affairs. “We realized the school as a whole needed to have a diversity statement to help define what kind of a workforce we should have.”

When University of Miami President Julio Frenk delivered his inauguration speech on January 29, one of the ambitious ideas he put forth was “the development of a major innovation hub with hemispheric scope” — a challenge for which he said the University was uniquely positioned. Strengthened by a new partnership and directed by a new strategy, UM is setting off on the path to meet Frenk’s challenge to develop a hemispheric innovation and technology hub.

A recent change — one awaiting installation of new signage — is the rebranding of UM’s Life Science and Technology Park as Converge Miami. When UM opened the six-story, 252,000-square-foot facility on September 23, 2011, then-President Donna E. Shalala called it “a game-changer” for Miami, and “a place where education, research, and technology intersect with discovery and innovation.” Its new name will convey that the building — and, by extension, UM — is that hub of innovation Frenk wants to be a hemispheric magnet for exciting new ideas.

Laurence B. Gardner, M.D., interim Dean of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, presented the innovative ’Cane Academy program to the national Council of Deans at the annual meeting of the Association of American Medical Colleges in Seattle.

“This represents a strategy for actively engaging students in their own learning and holding them accountable for mastery of the material prior to the ‘classroom’ exercises,” Gardner said. “In our example, there is much more team-based learning and clinical problem solving mentored by a faculty member.”

Alessia Fornoni, M.D., Ph.D., professor of medicine, and molecular and cellular pharmacology, Co-Director of Novel Methods for the Miami Clinical and Translational Science Institute, and Associate Director of the M.D./Ph.D. Program, has been named Chief of the Department of Medicine’s Division of Nephrology and Hypertension at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. She succeeds Oliver Lenz, M.D., M.B.A., professor of clinical medicine and Medical Director of Jackson Memorial Hospital nephrology clinics, who has served as Interim Chief since 2013.

“My vision for the Division of Nephrology and Hypertension is to re-establish it as one of the top nephrology programs in the country and facilitate the advancement of the division to the forefront of clinical and experimental innovation,” said Fornoni. “This will include the creation of an interdisciplinary and multi-departmental Renal Disease Center to translate discovery research into patient care. I will promote increased collaboration and a strengthened relationship with the Miami Transplant Institute, our basic science departments and our research institutes to foster team science approaches to patient care.”

Big data and electronic health records are transforming the practice of medicine and advancing public health in ways that could not have been imagined just a few years ago. Along with these advances come a number of complex issues, obstacles and ethics questions that Kenneth W. Goodman, Ph.D., director of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine’s Institute for Bioethics and Health Policy and co-director of UM Ethics Programs, considers in his new book Ethics, Medicine, and Information Technology: Intelligent Machines and the Transformation of Health Care.

It is impossible to overstate the impact of health information technology on all of us, Goodman says early in the book: “More than genetics and stem cells, more than left-ventricular-assist devices and extra-corporeal membrane oxygenation, more than organ transplants and gamma knives and nanomedicine and ovarian hyperstimulation — more than any technology of the sort that tends to raise or contribute to interesting and difficult ethical issues — it is the use of computers and communication technologies that will affect the lives of people in the 21st century.

“In the other direction, more human lives will be touched by health information technology than any other technology, ever.”

Rates of depression are higher among medical students than in the general population, and the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine has made changing that a top priority. Medical student leaders worked with students from the School of Nursing and Health Studies to host a depression screening and information event at the Miller School this month.

“Depression is one of the most common mental illnesses, yet the stigma around diagnosis and treatment is still very large,” said Christine M. Wilkins, a member of the M.D./M.P.H. Class of 2019 and president of the Mental Health Awareness Group. “Depression and suicide are endemic in the medical community.

In preparation for the February visit by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) that will determine whether the Miller School of Medicine is granted reaccreditation, three executives from other medical schools will conduct a mock site visit at the Miller School this week to point out strengths, weaknesses, and possible solutions to any issues they observe.

“Their job is to put us through what the real site visit will be like, to ask critical questions that they have gleaned from review of the documents we submitted,” said Alex J. Mechaber, M.D., Senior Associate Dean for Undergraduate Medical Education. “They are going to be brutally honest and critically constructive with us.

Two University of Miami Miller School of Medicine M.D./M.P.H. students received national awards at the 2016 American Public Health Association Annual Meeting and Exposition in Denver.

Jordan D. Stillman, a second-year M.D./M.P.H. student, won the best Student Poster Presentation Award by the American Public Health Association (APHA) Injury Control and Emergency Health Services Section. Stillman’s research examines unsafe working conditions for a group of temporary and payroll minority construction workers in South Florida.

Amit Patel, M.D., M.S., professor of surgery and director of Clinical Regenerative Medicine and Tissue Engineering at the University of Utah School of Medicine, has been named Chief of Cardiac Surgery at the University of Miami Health System.

Patel is a leader in the development of new therapies for cardiac diseases that incorporate the latest advances in open surgical reconstruction, trans-catheter interventions, stem cells, genetic approaches, and matrix therapies.

Adina Zeki Al Hazzouri, Ph.D., assistant professor of epidemiology in the Department of Public Health Sciences at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, recently joined with a multidisciplinary team of researchers from 11 other institutions to produce a scientific statement for the American Heart Association about the impact of hypertension on cognitive function.

Age-related dementia, most commonly caused by Alzheimer’s disease or cerebrovascular factors, is identified by the authors as a major public health threat. Nonetheless, although chronic arterial hypertension is a well-established risk factor for both types of dementia, the link between hypertension and its treatment and cognition remains poorly understood. The scientific statement, published online, assesses the current state of knowledge, identifies gaps and provides future directions for research.

Charles B. Nemeroff, M.D., Ph.D., Leonard M. Miller Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, has received the 2016 Julius Axelrod Mentorship Award from the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology. The award was presented on December 5 during the President’s Plenary Session at the organization’s annual meeting in Hollywood, Florida.

The award is named in honor of a Nobel Prize-winning American pharmacologist who shaped the fields of neuroscience, drug metabolism and biochemistry, and who served as a mentor for numerous eminent pharmacologists around the world. It is given each year to an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to neuropsychopharmacology by mentoring and developing young scientists into leaders in the field.

The award was presented November 8 during a ceremony at the Batchelor Children’s Research Institute before Batchelor family members and trustees of the Batchelor Family Foundation, University of Miami and Miller School of Medicine leadership, family members, and colleagues.

In apparently unprecedented presentations by a U.S. scholar, Sergio G. Litewka, M.D., M.P.H., associate professor of surgery and Director of International Programs for the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine’s Institute for Bioethics and Health Policy, delivered two lectures to Cuba’s National Coordination Center for Clinical Trials (CENCEC), the country’s leading organization for human subjects research.

Litewka gave plenary lectures on “The History of Research Ethics: Tragedy and Progress” and “International Perspectives on Research Integrity” as part of the VI International Workshop on Design and Management of Clinical Trials at the Havana International Conference Center November 7-11.

More than a year since the then-obscure but now notorious mosquito-borne virus erupted in northeastern Brazil, Zika continues to confound scientists seeking to solve its mysteries.

Ivan Gonzalez, M.D., assistant professor of pediatrics and Co-Director of the Zika Response Team, joined other top international experts discussing the health impact of Zika at a recent press briefing held in Atlanta as part of the 65th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH).

Bradley Goldstein, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of otolaryngology, is a new recipient of a Clinician/Scientist Development Award from the Triological Society and the American College of Surgeons, supporting his research on olfactory loss. The grant is designed to augment the research programs of promising clinician/scientists who are currently supported by National Institutes of Health career development awards, in an effort to help them compete for further NIH funding. The new award provides an additional $80,000 a year for three years.

Goldstein’s research is aimed at understanding the contribution of stem cells to neurogenesis and tissue homeostasis in the olfactory system. He and collaborators at the Interdisciplinary Stem Cell Institute and the Department of Physiology and Biophysics have published their recent findings in the journal Development. This paper reports a novel method for the culture of olfactory stem cells, and also explores previously unrecognized regulatory mechanisms involved in their self-renewal.

UHealth – the University of Miami Health System had a major presence at the 2016 Miami-Dade Heart Walk, which took place at Bayfront Park in downtown Miami on November 20. More than 6,000 walkers participated in the family-fun event, which is sponsored by the American Heart Association and raises awareness and funds for heart disease and stroke.

As one of the walk’s top sponsors, the UHealth Heart Walk team raised nearly $33,000 toward the estimated $450,000 raised overall for the event.

Danyelle Thomas, a fourth-year M.D./M.P.H. student, has received the National Medical Fellowships William and Charlotte Cadbury Award. The award was presented on November 14 at the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) Annual Meeting in Seattle.

The Cadbury Award was established in 1977 in honor of William and Charlotte Cadbury’s exceptional service to National Medical Fellowships. It is given in the amount of $5,000 to fourth-year medical students in recognition of their outstanding academic achievement, leadership and potential for significant contributions to medicine.

As part of the UHealth Lecture Series, Elizabeth Crocco, M.D., associate clinical professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Director of the Memory Disorders Clinic, gave a presentation on memory, cognition, and new activities and studies taking place at the Center on Aging.

Her presentation was part of the Memory Disorder Clinic’s effort to service the community during Alzheimer’s Awareness Month. More than 350 people gathered on the UM Coral Gables campus to hear her speak. With three Brain Fitness computers running and a line out the door of people interested in free memory screenings, it was an unforgettable event!

The Buoniconti Fund to Cure Paralysis presents its Annual Holiday Bazaar from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Friday, December 9, in front of the Lois Pope LIFE Center on the Miller School of Medicine’s Schoninger Plaza. Avoid the long lines, do your holiday shopping, and get great discounts for a great cause. The bazaar will feature holiday gifts, accessories, travel, Kidz Korner, jewelry, watches, home items, and much more. Call 305-243-2267, or email .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) for more information.

Do you want to know what people are thinking? Learn the basics of successfully using Qualtrics, a University of Miami survey tool, on Wednesday, December 7, from 10 a.m. to noon, on the medical campus in the Calder Library basement, room 014, or on Monday, December 12, from 2 to 4 p.m., on the Coral Gables campus, in Gables One Tower, room 1100J.

This great survey tool gives you the ability to build unique surveys, report on your results, and much more. Since Qualtrics is a web-based tool, you can do this online from any location, at any time. Ready to get trained? Sign up at ULearn (ulearn.miami.edu) and search for the keyword “Qualtrics.”

The music therapy program at Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center invites cancer survivors of all ages, abilities and experience levels to join the Sylvester Singers Survivor Choir. Enjoy free lessons with no commitment and the physical and mental benefits of social singing. All styles of vocal music are welcome.

Rehearsals begin in January and will be held on Mondays from 2:30 to 4 p.m. in the Support Services Building, 1430 NW 11th Avenue, Miami. Parking fees will be covered. For more information, email Sylvester’s music therapist Marlen Rodriguez-Wolfe, a graduate of the Frost School of Music, at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

The UM Counseling Center’s Sexual Assault Resource Team (SART) is seeking dedicated, warm and empathic faculty, staff and graduate student volunteers to serve during the 2017 calendar year. SART is often the first line of response for UM students who have been sexually assaulted, molested or battered, and has supported sexual assault survivors and concerned others since 1992.

Volunteers provide hotline callers with much-needed emotional support, information and referrals, in addition to help accessing resources when appropriate. All volunteers receive comprehensive training in taking calls from students in a variety of sexual assault-related situations, orientation to UM’s varied resources for those who have been sexually victimized, and ongoing support from licensed mental health professionals at the Counseling Center.

Due to October’s inclement weather, Miami Valves 2016 has been renamed Miami Valves 2017 and rescheduled to January 29-31 at the Miami Marriott Biscayne Bay. The conference will showcase the latest systems, techniques and practices to ensure safe and effective transcatheter valve replacement, and is the natural progression of the University of Miami’s Masters in Repair of Structural Heart Disease Conference, which has a long history of professional educational excellence.

The faculty represents some of the foremost experts in the field of structural heart disease therapy. They will utilize interactive presentations, case presentations and symposia to appraise new and upcoming technologies in the management of valvular heart disease to determine their benefit for patients, evaluate the relative advantages and disadvantages of different strategies in complex cases involving valvular disease, and demonstrate how to start a transcatheter aortic valve replacement program.

The holiday edition of Mind and Matter offers insight into the world of our life’s stories. Mind and Matter is the Faculty and Staff Assistance Program’s quarterly newsletter and features articles on health and well-being, helpful tips on maintaining work-life balance, and other valuable resources, such as free wellness seminars for faculty and staff. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, or seminar announcements via email, please visit the Faculty and Staff Assistance Program website or contact Caliope Bootle at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

Sign up now for Holistic Holiday at Sea 2017 and earn CME/CEUs while enjoying the world’s largest, most comprehensive health and wellness program ever held on a ship at sea, the MSCDivina, sailing from Miami to Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, the Yucatan, and the Bahamas March 11-18.

Produced by the University of Miami’s Integrative and Complementary Academic Medicine Programs (iCamp), the CME/CEU program features renowned speakers who will cover evidence-based research and its applications in modern clinical medicine. Topics will include cardiovascular disease, cancer prevention, diabetes, the function of the retina, what current research says about GMO foods and our health, nutritional supplementation, the gut-brain axis, and much more. Of the 135 classes offered, up to 35 CEU hours and 31.5 CME hours are obtainable.

The Miami Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) is requesting applications for an internal competition to sponsor up to four faculty to attend the Eureka Institute 9th International Certificate Program in Translational Medicine, April 23-29 in Siracusa, Italy.

Attendees of the program will analyze the business, scientific and regulatory aspects of translational science; develop communication skills for presenting complex scientific ideas; and analyze effective manuscript preparation and begin to apply the concepts to their own work.

The School of Business Administration’s next Executive MBA for Health Care Professionals class begins January 6, 2017. For more information contact Catherine Garrido at 305-284-3710 or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

You may list the CC, ROS, and PFSH as separate elements of history or you may include them in the description of the HPI.

You do not need to re-record a ROS and/or a PFSH obtained during an earlier encounter if there is evidence that the physician reviewed and updated the previous information. This may occur when a physician updates his or her own record or in an institutional setting or group practice where many physicians use a common record.

The Office of the Provost is pleased to invite applications and nominations for the 2017 Faculty Learning Community (FLC). This year, there will be distinct FLC groups around three themes: 3D Scanning, Printing, and Visualization; Flipped and Active Learning; and Student Generated Media.

The deadline for applications is Friday, December 16.

The FLC program was the focus of the University’s Quality Enhancement Plan. FLCs give faculty members from all disciplines the knowledge, skills, and pedagogical support to improve their teaching and enhance the learning environment.

The 2016 U.S. election and anticipated policy outcomes will significantly impact the health care industry over the next four years and beyond. On Friday, March 3, 2017, the Center for Health Sector Management and Policy at the University of Miami School of Business Administration will host the sixth in its series of premier health care industry impact conferences, “The Business of Health Care Post Election.”